Marijuana training programs may offer a roadmap for emerging trades

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Dive Brief:

Come September, Ohioans will have an opportunity to train for jobs in the medical cannabis industry in a state-licensed school, WXVU Cincinnati reports. With the program, Ohio joins 28 other states that have already done so. The Cleveland School of Cannabis will provide training following legalization of marijuana in the state.

Although the school is not accredited, it is licensed by the Ohio Board of Career Colleges and Schools. Ohio's Medical Marijuana Control Board didn't plan on regulating workforce training, so the other board stepped in, in part, to provide oversight.

The school will provide training in the history of cannabis, legal issues and advocacy, horticulture, extracts and business topics. The school offers three individual certificates and an executive certificate that combines them.

Dive Insight:

With more than 600,000 jobs expected to be created by the recreational and medical industries by 2025, training for those jobs is on the rise, especially as the industry continues to rake in money where the drug is fully legalized. Medical marijuana sales are expected to grow to over $13 billion by 2020 alone.

For now, training companies and businesses in the industry may be challenged by various requirements. But the industry could easily represent the future of training for trade skills, if state boards see success in their attempts to prepare a workforce essentially from scratch.

Meanwhile, as the cannabis industry grows, so does its ripple effect. Many companies are rethinking their drug-use policies and retraining recruiters in the wake of new and upcoming legislation, and fewer employers are testing candidates for marijuana use. For employers, generally, there's no going back; legalization will likely continue to spread, rather than slow down, especially as states continue passing their own legislation that differs from the federal government's stance.